Top 113 Quotes & Sayings by Charles Kettering

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American inventor Charles Kettering.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
Charles Kettering

Charles Franklin Kettering sometimes known as Charles Fredrick Kettering was an American inventor, engineer, businessman, and the holder of 186 patents. He was a founder of Delco, and was head of research at General Motors from 1920 to 1947. Among his most widely used automotive developments were the electrical starting motor and leaded gasoline. In association with the DuPont Chemical Company, he was also responsible for the invention of Freon refrigerant for refrigeration and air conditioning systems. At DuPont he also was responsible for the development of Duco lacquers and enamels, the first practical colored paints for mass-produced automobiles. While working with the Dayton-Wright Company he developed the "Bug" aerial torpedo, considered the world's first aerial missile. He led the advancement of practical, lightweight two-stroke diesel engines, revolutionizing the locomotive and heavy equipment industries. In 1927, he founded the Kettering Foundation, a non-partisan research foundation, and was featured on the cover of Time magazine in January 1933.

Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.
Knowing is not understanding. There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it.
One fails forward toward success. — © Charles Kettering
One fails forward toward success.
It doesn't matter if you try and try and try again, and fail. It does matter if you try and fail, and fail to try again.
You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.
Thinking is one thing no one has ever been able to tax.
I object to people running down the future. I am going to live all the rest of my life there.
People think of the inventor as a screwball, but no one ever asks the inventor what he thinks of other people.
Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.
The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility.
A problem well stated is a problem half-solved.
If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.
The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress. — © Charles Kettering
The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.
No one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm.
My definition of an educated man is the fellow who knows the right thing to do at the time it has to be done. You can be sincere and still be stupid.
Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.
In America we can say what we think, and even if we can't think, we can say it anyhow.
People are very open-minded about new things - as long as they're exactly like the old ones.
High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.
The only time you mustn't fail is the last time you try.
Every time you tear a leaf off a calendar, you present a new place for new ideas and progress.
If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it.
The only difference between a problem and a solution is that people understand the solution.
Problems are the price of progress. Don't bring me anything but trouble. Good news weakens me.
We often say that the biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee to fail intelligently... to experiment over and over again and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.
There exist limitless opportunities in every industry. Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.
Inventing is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less material you need.
An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.
An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn't take his education too seriously.
You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.
There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it.
The biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee how to fail intelligently. We have to train him to experiment over and over and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.
You can be sincere and still be stupid.
My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.
There will always be a frontier where there is an open mind and a willing hand.
The opportunities of man are limited only by his imagination. But so few have imagination that there are ten thousand fiddlers to one composer.
We need to teach the highly educated man that it is not a disgrace to fail and that he must analyze every failure to find its cause. He must learn how to fail intelligently, for failing is one of the greatest arts in the world.
A person must have a certain amount of intelligent ignorance to get anywhere. — © Charles Kettering
A person must have a certain amount of intelligent ignorance to get anywhere.
It is not a disgrace to fail. Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world.
We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.
The price of progress is trouble.
Whenever you look at a piece of work and you think the fellow was crazy, then you want to pay some attention to that. One of you is likely to be, and you had better find out which one it is. It makes an awful lot of difference.
Every father should remember one day his son will follow his example, not his advice.
It is the 'follow through' that makes the great difference between ultimate success and failure, because it is so easy to stop.
A problem thoroughly understood is always fairly simple. Found your opinions on facts, not prejudices. We know too many things that are not true.
I don't want men of experience working for me. The experienced man is always telling me why something can't be done. The fellow who has not had any experience is so dumb he doesn't know a thing can't be done - and he goes ahead and does it.
Action without intelligence is a form of insanity, but intelligence without action is the greatest form of stupidity in the world.
99 percent of success is built on failure. — © Charles Kettering
99 percent of success is built on failure.
Every great improvement has come after repeated failures. Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.
Research means that you don't know, but are willing to find out.
I am not interested in the past. I am interested in the future, for that is where I expect to spend the rest of my life.
This problem, too, will look simple after it is solved.
The person who doesn't know something can't be done will often find a way to go ahead and do it.
If I have had any success, it's due to luck, but I notice the harder I work, the luckier I get.
If you're doing something the same way you have been doing it for ten years, the chances are you are doing it wrong.
here is a great difference between knowing a thing and understanding it. You can know a lot and not really understand anything.
The whole fun of living is trying to make something better.
Logic is a system whereby one may go wrong with confidence.
You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.
All human development, no matter what form it takes, must be outside the rules; otherwise we would never have anything new.
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